John Heard, back in the winner’s circle recently with the promising Collision Earth, applies techniques he used while a first grade rugby league player and a professional sprinter to training his greyhounds.
And John has obviously hit upon the right methods as he has had a swag of stars, beginning with General Brett in the early 1970s, to Pororoca, Westend Prince, Forty Twenty and more recently Princess Black, in 2013.
"Nobody really taught me how to train greyhounds but in the early 1960s I had two seasons with South Sydney rugby league team and was also a pro runner, playing footy in winter and competing in athletics during the summer," John recalled this week.
"Each day now I am out with the dogs at 4am, walk for an hour, then put the race dogs on the walking machine.
"When the sun comes up I’m off to the beach to run the greyhounds at three quarter pace.
"I do the beach work three times a week for sprinters and four times weekly for stayers."
John’s introduction to the sport came in 1955 when, as a 14-year-old, he accompanied his father Wally and his pal Bill Watkins to WYONG dogs.
"Bill had a dog called Banlon and wanted me to catch it, promising me a present if the dog won," John said.
"Bill had $20 (ten pounds) on the dog and it won, but because it was a $1.50 (2/1 on) favourite he won only $10 so my present was a bag of oranges.
"I took out a trainer’s licence 53 years ago, when I was 20, and my first winner was Big Caesar, at WYONG, the only race the dog ever won.
"Big Caesar was owned by Michael Segreto, for whom I still train, so we go back a long way.
"My first good dog was General Brett which I raced in partnership with George Achurch.
"Johnny Young, who had champions like Reversi and Petite Panther, had two pups for sale for $1,500 each and I picked out the bitch, who was all get up and go.
"The dog didn’t seem interested in anything but when we got to the car George came out with the dog, saying he had decided to get it as well.
"Lucky he did because the dog was General Brett, who couldn’t run 400 metres at first but who later became a top grade stayer.
"We changed things around when I took him to the TV vet Harry Cooper, who had a surgery at Gladesville.
"Harry said the dog’s problem was a blood disorder and when that was corrected General Brett became a star.
"He took three tenths of a second off Pearl Moss’ long distance record at Wentworth Park, beat Miss High Lo at Harold Park and chased both her and He’s Some Boy home in big races at Wenty.
"I was living at Coogee and thought I’d lost General Brett one day when I tried to gallop him along Yarra Bay Beach.
"The dog took off and ran into the nearby cemetery and I thought he might run onto busy Bunnerong Road and get killed.
"I’d given up looking for him so went back to my panel van and there he was sitting up in the vehicle waiting for me!
"General Brett was a $1.20 favourite in his heat of the 1973 Summer Cup over 732 metres at Harold Park and won in faster time than the Victorian champ Allocate took to win the other heat.
"In the final, won by Allocate, General Brett looked all over a winner when he sat behind the speedy Valodia but when he went to go underneath her she cut back to the fence and my dog fell, hit the running rail, got hurt, and never raced again.
"Next good stayer I had was Westend Prince but although I won eight races with him he wasn’t a keen chaser so I sent him to Peter Giles, the Melbourne’s master trainer of stayers, and the dog won everything.
"Pororoca was the fastest I’ve had but he would go like a rocket in a heat but then wouldn’t chase if he was backed up a week later, so usually flopped in semis and finals.
"He won his Paws Of Thunder heat in 29.74 when the Wenty record was 29.73 and the mighty Paua To Burn ran 30.10 the same night.
"Pororoca won 21 of his 43 races for me and we sent him to Peter Giles but after breaking the Traralgon record in a trial the dog went poorly in two races so was transferred to Tom and George Dailly and became a superstar.
"Biggest thrill I’ve had was Forty Twenty winning the Australian Stayers’ Challenge at Cannington.
"They all told me he couldn’t win because he hadn’t trialled there but I knew if he found the fence it wouldn’t matter and he ran over the top of the best stayers in Australia.
"At one stage Forty Twenty won 20 races within 12 months and won 20 metropolitan area races, including eight at Wentworth Park, eight on his favourite track, Albion Park, three at Cannington and one in Melbourne when he beat Jason Thompson’s Next Top Model in the Maidment Memorial.
"Undoubtedly the biggest disappointment of my career was losing Princess Black to a suspected snake bite after she had won 11 of 25 races including five in succession at Wentworth Park in 2013.
"She ran so wide there she almost touched the outside fence but she won a Golden Easter Egg heat in 29.59 and broke the 30 second barrier five times at Wentworth Park.
"I’m only a backyard trainer, I don’t breed or rear and just train a few dogs for other people, but considering I started my life as a junior clerk and then driving a Sydney council truck, I’m pretty happy with the way things have gone."
